Penny sustains her high-wire act, creating characters of remarkable depth in an exhilarating whodunit.” —People “Louise Penny is unsurpassed at building a sense of heart-stopping urgency. Sometimes the stakes are personal: a marriage, a character's sanity. Sometimes the threat is to the village, a culture or even to the province of Quebec. This time Penny manages to create a threat that could truly be worldwide, and to place its future in the hands of our friends in Three Pines.” —Salem Macknee, The News & Observer “[M]agical....[T]he perfect reminder of the dark side of human nature, but that side does not always win out. Penny is an expert at pulling away the surface of her characters to expose their deeper-and often ugly-layers, always doing so with a direct but compassionate hand.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) on THE NATURE OF THE BEAST “A strong sense of place, a multilayered plot, and well-crafted (and for Penny's fans, familiar) characters combine for a thoughtful, intriguing tale. More than a simple mystery, Penny's novel peels away the emotional and psychological layers of the inhabitants of Three Pines.” —Library Journal, (starred) on THE NATURE OF THE BEAST “Three Pines again proves no refuge in Penny's stellar [The Nature of the Beast ]...fans will delight in [her] continued complex fleshing out of characters they have come to love.” —Publishers Weekly (starred) “[A] compelling mystery that leads to an exciting but tantalizingly open-ended finale.” —Booklist on NATURE OF THE BEAST
Penny's skill at developing quirky, complex, and fragile characters is once again on display.
RT Book Reviews on The Long Way Home
This series dominates best-seller lists and award lists for a reason. Penny tells powerful stories of damage and healing in the human heart, leavened with affection, humor and - thank goodness - redemption.
The Charlotte Observer on The Long Way Home
[A] work of art... that transcends genre, engages heart and mind and, like all of Penny's work, leaves the reader awestruck by the depth of her skills and the decency of her spirit.
Richmond Times-Dispatch on The Long Way Home
Splendid....Ms. Penny's books mix some classic elements of the police procedural with a deep-delving psychology, as well as a sorrowful sense of the precarious nature of human goodness, and the persistence of its opposite, even in rural Edens like Three Pines.
The New York Times on The Long Way Home
★ 06/15/2015 The bucolic Quebec village of Three Pines again proves no refuge in Penny’s stellar 11th Armand Gamache novel (after 2014’s The Long Way Home). Gamache has settled in the small community after retiring from the Sûreté, where he worked as a homicide detective. But he’s drawn back to the hunt after Laurent Lepage, a nine-year-old boy with a penchant for crying wolf, is found dead under circumstances that Gamache finds suspicious. The death followed Laurent’s latest fantastic—and disbelieved—claim, of having found a gun as big as a building with a winged monster on it in the woods. Despite Gamache’s unofficial status, he’s allowed to work the case, which takes multiple unexpected turns. In this typically engaging and fairly clued installment, Gamache wrestles with whether he can truly be content with the quiet life Three Pines offers, a struggle that echoes the choices, past and present, others have made about their responsibility to confront the evil the human spirit is capable of. Series fans will delight in Penny’s continued complex fleshing out of characters they have come to love. Author tour. Agent: Teresa Chris, Teresa Chris Literary Agency. (Aug.)
★ 07/01/2015 Penny's 11th series entry (after The Long Way Home) has Armand Gamache slowly adjusting to retirement in the small, idyllic, Quebec village of Three Pines. When a local boy is found dead in a ditch, Gamache, feeling guilty about ignoring the young man's tall tales, becomes involved. Soon the familiar cast of characters, including Clara, Gabri, Inspector Beauvoir, Ruth, her duck and the serene Reine-Marie, are all involved in the investigation of the murder and the unthinkable object that precipitated the terrible act. A thread that subtly runs through the book is the disquiet Gamache feels as he tries to find his purpose now that he is no longer the chief inspector of the Sûreté. VERDICT A strong sense of place, a multilayered plot, and well-crafted (and for Penny's fans, familiar) characters combine for a thoughtful, intriguing tale. More than a simple mystery, Penny's novel peels away the emotional and psychological layers of the inhabitants of Three Pines. Although this book may stand alone, reading the previous titles will give readers context to truly understand and enjoy this latest in the series.—Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY
As Louise Penny explains in the introduction to her newest Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, Robert Bathurst had much to live up to when he was selected to succeed longtime narrator Ralph Cosham, who passed away last year. She listened to hundreds of candidates before selecting the British actor, best known to American audiences from “Downton Abbey.” Be assured that her choice was right. Bathurst’s pleasant light baritone and sensitive pacing suit the thoughtful series—and this story about a boy who disappears after seeing something he shouldn’t. No matter that his English accent peeps out occasionally beneath a nice range of French and generalized North American voices. All is well for Penny’s myriad fans. A.C.S. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2015 - AudioFile
★ 2015-07-06 In Inspector Gamache's 11th outing, the sheltering forest around his small village of Three Pines is revealed to be a hiding place for unexpected evil. Armand Gamache, former head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is learning to let go and be happy with his new life in Three Pines, far from the evil that ate away at him for years. His former colleagues and friends poke fun at him, saying the great inspector will never truly hang up his hat, but these jokes turn deadly serious when an imaginative 9-year-old boy named Laurent is murdered shortly after telling what seemed to be a tall tale about a massive gun wielded by a monster in the woods. When it's discovered that the boy was not exaggerating even in the slightest, Gamache's mind quickly switches back to questioning his surroundings and the people who inhabit this space—many of them his close friends. Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste and her right hand, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, take up residence in Three Pines, and with Gamache's sideline help, they begin to find out what sort of darkness lurks just outside of town. Penny uses her well-known, idyllic setting as the center point of a mystery with global scope and consequences, spanning decades and implicating many, including series veterans. What makes this story most magical, though, is how the many aspects of this spiraling tale can be connected by a Bible verse and related lines from a Yeats poem: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" It's with this eye for detail that Penny sketches the "nature of the beast"—evil that has the potential to grow even in the most unexpected places. An especially terrifying character returning from Gamache's past is the perfect reminder of the dark side of human nature, but that side does not always win out. Penny is an expert at pulling away the surface of her characters to expose their deeper—and often ugly—layers, always doing so with a direct but compassionate hand.